Abstract

Understanding how global climate change may affect regional and local-scale processes is vital to developing the capacity to adapt to these changes. The following is a summary of projected climate change impacts for six diverse yet connected sectors of the Pacific Northwest (PNW) environment: hydrology and water resources, salmon and marine ecosystems, forests, coasts, agriculture, and human health.

The information presented here draws largely from the work of the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington (water, salmon/marine ecosystems, forests, and coasts) with additional information from the U.S. Forest Service Research stations (forests), Washington State Department of Ecology (coasts), and the U.S. National Assessment.